I (Heart) Sainsbury's (17 December)

In our attempts to set up house, we've been making very good use of the rail, tube, and bus, not to mention our feet, as we venture to shops selling new and secondhand goods as well as the odd car-boot sale. These adventures have taken us to quite a variety of places in Greater London, including branches of Ikea, Tesco, Sainsbury's, and one of the most useful London institutions for outfitting a flat: the 99-pence, £1, and £+ shops. But I must admit that my favourite place so far is Sainsbury's. The selection! The prices! The cultural anthropology! I love browsing in grocery stores when I travel--they teach me more about where I am than any guidebook. What people eat, how food is marketed, and the norms of a given food culture are there for all to see. I've lived in Canada (Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Montréal) and the United States (La Jolla), but only in the first two cities as a grocery-shopping adult; trying to do a "big shop" of the Sainsbury's shelves is thus simultaneously fascinating and unbelievably time-consuming (different names, almost completely different brands, unexpected ingredients, unexpected clustering of foods). It's surprising how long it takes to shop when you have to read every package, not just scan the shelves for your favourite brand's label (often without even reading the words; just recognizing the colour scheme). This is confounded by the sheer variety of goods on offer here. It's all making for fun shopping and, considering the enormous difference in the cost of grocery-store food and eating in even the most modest of London restaurants, we should save money and eat very well if we cook a lot at home.

This photo's for you, Dianne. I've never seen brussel sprouts (although according to the Sainsbury's packaging, they're "brussels" sprouts) still on the branch and thought you'd enjoy seeing them too. Bob was embarrassed when I took this photo--I suppose bringing out the camera in a grocery store isn't too dignified, but then, dignity is pretty overrated, don't you think?

This was our snack after lugging home all our purchases. Sainsbury's "basics" line is their cheeky no-name brand full of a "what more could you need?" sensibility, like the plastic food wrap we bought which proclaims, "It wraps, it covers." Packaging that makes you smile may be rare, but not at Sainsbury's! (P.S. The cheese and oaties were delicious.)

Buying eggs is a good example of the difference between shopping at Sainsbury's and, say, Canada's Safeway: there is an astonishing variety of eggs on sale here (none of which are white in colour), the packaging comes with brief narratives describing the eggs' origins, the 6-pack is a very common size, and the eggs are displayed in a regular, non-refrigerated aisle (part of the reason it took us so long to find them the first time). Plus they can be so fresh that you may get the occasional feather as proof. Very early on, while we were staying with Fiona and Gerald, Fiona remarked about something, using a word that was unfamiliar to me. After I asked for clarification, she explained that the word meant "to be very pleased about something" and that she liked the term. Well, I thought it was a great word and I liked it coming from Fiona, but somehow both Bob and I have been reluctant to use British slang (even though we hear it all the time) because it just makes us feel like we're trying to be Brits...even though that's silly, I know! But I like Fiona's word so much that I'll venture across (probably way across) the poseur line here:

I'm chuffed about Sainsbury's!